


Flood, Flounder, Flourish

by treepyful (treeperson)



Category: Schitt's Creek
Genre: A Mutual Love of Spreadsheets, Friendship, Gen, Insurance Hell, Post-Canon, Support, business friends
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-16
Updated: 2021-02-16
Packaged: 2021-03-18 15:00:05
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,042
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29370414
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/treeperson/pseuds/treepyful
Summary: When a pipe had burst and flooded Ray’s house earlier in the week, Patrick had known immediately what he had to do.
Relationships: Patrick Brewer & Ray Butani, Patrick Brewer/David Rose (background) - Relationship
Comments: 34
Kudos: 73
Collections: Schitt's Creek Season 7





	Flood, Flounder, Flourish

**Author's Note:**

  * In response to a prompt by [theclaravoyant](https://archiveofourown.org/users/theclaravoyant/pseuds/theclaravoyant) in the [SCSeason7](https://archiveofourown.org/collections/SCSeason7) collection. 



> **Prompt:**  
> 
> 
> 7x03 - Something goes wrong with Ray's place (a storm, bug bombing etc.) and he needs somewhere to stay for a while. It's the least Patrick can do to offer, right?
> 
> (prompt for any format that takes your fancy!)
> 
> ***
> 
> Why did I write this? I have no idea what I’m talking about. Oh, right – because I really like the idea of Ray and Patrick being supportive business buddies. ❤️
> 
> To theclaravoyant: I know this fill is maybe looking a bit sideways at your prompt rather than straight on, and it probably isn’t exactly the tone you were looking for, but I hope you find it acceptable nonetheless! I really like the idea of Patrick and Ray as actual friends, not just past employer/employee and ex-landlord/renter, and I wanted to explore that a little bit here. Plus, giving a little extra dimension to side characters is fun!
> 
> Thank you to singsongsung for the much-needed support in getting this out the door!

When Patrick woke up at 3:12 am, his mouth was that sticky sort of dry that told him he hadn’t drunk enough water the day before. Smacking his lips, he sat up slightly and flung his hand out for the water glass that usually lived on his nightstand, only to find that it wasn’t there.

Blinking in muddled confusion, Patrick rolled over to stare at the darkened lamp, dogeared book, and quietly charging phone that sat on the table. None of these things were his novelty Maple Leafs glass full of delicious thirst-quenching water. More neurons fired and Patrick remembered seeing David take their water glasses down to wash that morning. He did not remember seeing him bring them back up.

(Patrick hadn’t brought them back up either, despite having seen them sitting on the drying rack all day, but that wasn’t the point right now. The point was that _David_ – who was not awake to defend himself and could therefore blissfully absorb all of Patrick’s slightly incoherent and mostly undeserved ire – hadn’t and now Patrick was both thirsty and more awake than he wished to be when it was still as dark as it was outside.)

With a sigh and a muted grumble, Patrick climbed out of bed and into his slippers, determined to get his water and – because he was a good husband even when cranky over petty things – bring both glasses back upstairs.

Patrick was still mostly asleep by the time he got to the kitchen and downed an entire glass of water while standing over the sink, which was likely why he didn’t notice the lamp on in the living room until he was on his return trip to the stairs, both glasses filled and clutched to his chest with sleep-clumsy hands. The light brought up a couple more slightly uncharitable thoughts about David’s forgetfulness until Patrick realised that there was someone sitting on the couch. The half second of adrenaline that surged through his body woke him up enough to remember that oh, right, Ray was staying with them.

When a pipe had burst and flooded Ray’s house earlier in the week, Patrick had known immediately what he had to do. It had taken some convincing to get David on board, but Patrick knew his protests were at least fifty percent performative – he liked Ray almost as much as Patrick did and he knew what it was like to suddenly be short a place to live. When Patrick had called Ray and offered their spare room for as long as he needed it, Ray had gone quiet – so quiet that Patrick had checked to make sure the call hadn’t dropped – and then accepted the invitation with such excessive gratitude that Patrick blushed.

That had been eight days ago. Ever since, Ray had been almost ghost-like in his presence in their house, floating around quietly and staying out of their way and being the most unobtrusive Patrick had ever seen him be. It was disconcerting, to say the least, and Patrick had tried gently prodding him about it, encouraging him to eat dinner with them or watch a movie in the evening, but Ray had waved him off with a smile and claimed to not want to intrude. Which, not to put too fine a point on it, didn’t sound like Ray at all. But after a few days of trying, Patrick had given up and put Ray’s odd mood down to the awkwardness of staying in someone else’s home combined with the shock of an abrupt displacement. He still quietly worried, though, whenever he saw Ray acting oddly.

Like now, for example.

Ray was sitting with his back to Patrick and his head bowed over his lap. He was completely surrounded by a forest’s worth of paper stacked in little piles all over the cushions and the coffee table, minus the space left for an open laptop, its screen bright in the dim light of the room. As Patrick watched, the screensaver started up and colourful transparent bubbles started bouncing around in utter defiance of the sombre mood that seemed to be emanating from the walls. Just as Patrick was debating whether to say something or quietly head back upstairs, he distinctly heard a very distressing sound emerge from Ray amidst the little tableau: a sniffle.

Fuck. “Ray?”

Ray startled and looked over his shoulder at Patrick, his eyes wide and definitely a little red. Patrick’s heart tightened. “Oh, hello Patrick!” Ray said, his tone a sad imitation of his regular enthusiasm. “I hope I didn’t wake you up!”

“No, I was just getting some water.” Patrick nodded loosely at the glasses in his hands. “Um. Are you okay?”

“Oh, I’m fine,” Ray said, waving Patrick’s words away. “I just couldn’t sleep. The bed is too soft for me, I think.” 

Patrick waited patiently for the rest of Ray’s commentary to drop, anticipating some quip about how he and David must want all of their guests to get bad backs or something, but it never came. Thrown off by the disruption to their usual rhythm of conversation, it took Patrick a moment to respond. 

“Oh. Sorry about that. Do you want to try the pullout couch instead? That mattress is firmer.”

“No, no, that’s okay. I’m using this time to do some work anyway. May as well be productive if I’m awake.”

Patrick may have still been waking up, but even he knew there was something wrong. No one just decides to work at that hour without reason.

“What sort of work? It’s after three in the morning, Ray.”

“Just some research.”

Ray was being... elusive. Patrick wouldn’t have thought that Ray knew what the word meant, let alone that he had the ability to personify it. He could see at least one spreadsheet open on Ray’s laptop though, plus what looked to be Netsuite open in the taskbar, so it was probably actually work research and not Patrick stumbling upon Ray exploring a fetish website or something. (It wouldn’t have been the first time.) (Not that Ray hadn’t done the same to him more than once.) (Really, their days as roommates were filled with embarrassment from all quarters and it was astonishing they could still look each other in the eye.)

“Oh. Research. Okay, well, I’ll just... leave you to it?”

“Thank you, Patrick,” Ray said, and Patrick turned to leave, really, he did, but then Ray sniffled again, and it was so pathetic and sad, and Patrick just _couldn’t_. 

“Ray.” Patrick came around the side of the couch and carefully perched on the arm, pinning Ray with a solemn look. “Seriously. Are you sure you’re okay?”

Ray let out a little sigh and tipped his head side to side, clearly deliberating something. “I’m looking up replacement costs for the things that were destroyed.”

Oh. Patrick grimaced. The flood that had resulted from the broken pipe was, by all accounts, substantial and given how very full Ray’s home was, the damages list was bound to be extensive. “What sort of things need replacing?”

“A lot. My cameras and props, mostly, but also most of the furniture from the main floor. Some software, too. I lost two computers, you know. Luckily, this one,” and Ray tapped the wrist rest of the laptop he was using, “was with me in the car when the pipe burst.”

“That is lucky.” For a given definition of luck, he supposed. “Are you managing to find equivalents for everything? I know online shopping can be a bit of crapshoot sometimes.”

“Oh, yes, I think I’ve got all the information I need now.”

“That’s… good?” Patrick added a question mark in response to Ray’s grim tone.

“Mm. Good.”

“Is it not?”

“Well, no. I haven’t done all the math quite yet so I could be wrong, but I suspect I’m not going to be able to bounce back in quite the way I was originally hoping.”

The cold from the water glasses had long seeped through Patrick’s thin shirt, and he suppressed a shiver. “What do you mean by that?”

“Financially.” Ray shook his head and the bottom of Patrick’s stomach dropped out. “I can’t afford this, Patrick. My insurance will cover some of the cost of the house and the equipment, of course, but I don’t think it will be enough to replace everything unless I take more from my savings than I’m comfortable with. I don’t want to have to dip into my retirement fund, but I don’t think my TFSA will cover this. Not all of it.”

Patrick let out a slow breath. He’d known that the next couple of weeks were going to be rough for Ray, full of all the exhausting annoyances that come with dealing with repairs and insurance and reorganising his home-slash-place-of-work, but this was not what he was expecting. Ray’s mood suddenly made a lot more sense.

However, if there was anything Patrick knew how to do, it was helping people. And if there was any one way he was particularly good at helping people, it was through financial literacy. He’d gotten himself a husband out of it, after all.

He cleared his throat. “Do you want some help?”

“I don’t want charity, Patrick,” Ray said with a slight gasp, waving a hand like he was fending off a fly. “You and David aren’t rich enough to help, anyway.”

Patrick let that slide with only the tiniest eyeroll, matching the tiny amount of spice Ray put into the comment. “I meant help figuring out what to do. Remember, you’re the one who hired me for this sort of thing.” In part, at least. Patrick still wasn’t completely sure what all his roles were during the time he worked for Ray, miscellaneous that they were.

“Until you quit six months later, yes.”

Patrick huffed a laugh. “Well, y’know. Sorry about that.”

“You’re forgiven, of course. True love, et cetera.” Drumming his fingers over the surface of the coffee table, Ray stared at his laptop screen. Patrick patiently waited him out.

Well, as patiently as one could be at that hour of night. That is, he let about thirty seconds pass before he pressed again. “Sometimes you just need a second set of eyes to help sort things out, catch stuff you maybe keep glossing over. Two heads are better than one, right? We’ll be able to figure it out.”

Ray heaved a sigh. “Oh, if you insist, Patrick.” He started moving stacks of assorted papers off the cushion beside him and Patrick set down his water glasses to help. Some of the papers were exactly what Patrick was expecting them to be, formal and official looking, usually addressed to Ray – Rakesh Butani, 37 Main St., Schitt’s Creek ON – but some of the others were decidedly unconventional. Patrick picked up from the couch cushion what looked like the back panel of a Cheerios box covered in slanted handwriting, shaking his head slightly as he sat down in its place beside Ray.

Tapping at the trackpad, Ray turned the laptop toward Patrick, and Patrick, well, he just managed to hold back a cringe. Ray was a good person, an excellent friend, and a successful businessman, but his organisational skills left something to be desired. Back when he had first started working for Ray, Patrick had tried to guide him towards something a little more streamlined, more standard, but Ray had just blithely refused in his good-natured way until Patrick had given up. His record keeping system (whatever it was – Patrick still didn’t really understand it) was clearly working out for him given his years of thriving entrepreneurship, but the whole thing made Patrick’s eye twitch when he thought about it. Or when he had to use it, he realised with a quiet sigh as he scrolled through the rows and rows of brightly highlighted cells, exclamation points, and the occasional emoji.

“You remember my spreadsheets, don’t you? Not much has changed.”

“Mmm, I see that,” Patrick responded, attempting to be generous. “I might need a refresher, though, so I figure we can start a new sheet instead? Just so I don’t mess anything up that you’ve already got here.”

Ray gave Patrick a little look that told him exactly how transparent he was being, but opened a new sheet all the same.

They began by listing all of the costs to rebuild Ray’s business empire, starting with the repairs to the house. The quote Ray read from, which had been folded and refolded several times, seemed suspiciously inexpensive to Patrick’s semi-knowledgeable eye – possibly at cost, even. He might not get on well with Ronnie, but Patrick felt a deep respect for her willingness to take a financial hit to help a friend in need.

Next came... well, everything else. For all Ray’s record keeping gave Patrick hives, it was meticulous and thorough. He had extensive lists of all the equipment, licenses, and other goods he’d had for each business, and while they were written seemingly haphazardly on various forms of paper (or cardboard, good grief), Ray not only knew exactly where each list was in his halo of paperwork, but the lists themselves seemed to be exceedingly accurate. For each business, they compared the list to the insurance claim, made note of what needed replacing and how much was going to be covered, and then used Ray’s research to figure out approximately how much he’d need to pay out of pocket.

Patrick was optimistic until they got to the photography.

“Right, so what does the insurance say needs to be replaced?” Patrick asked once he finished typing up the list of cameras, lenses, flashes, tripods, and multitude of other equipment Ray had read out from the back of a Brebner’s receipt.

“Oh, all of it.” When Patrick winced in sympathy, Ray nodded and continued. “The pipe was right above the photography studio. I’m really going to miss that loveseat,” he added mournfully.

“That’s understandable – it was a nice loveseat.” Patrick scrolled through the rows of figures, doing some rough mental math as he spoke. “How much to replace it all?”

“Fifteen thousand.”

Patrick snapped his head around to stare at Ray, who was looking dejectedly at where his hands were twisted together in his lap. “ _Fifteen thousand dollars_?”

“Photography equipment is expensive, Patrick.”

Apparently. “Is that before or after insurance comps you?”

“Before. It will be about eleven out of pocket.”

“Oh, Christ.” Patrick let out a low whistle.

“Indeed. My equipment was all second-hand from when the photography studio in Elm Glen closed, so the insurance isn’t paying out nearly enough to replace it.” Ray had gone all quiet again, and Patrick hated it. “It’s a big start up cost.”

Things only got worse from there. The recovery cost kept going up and up and up as Ray read from the itemised lists, all carefully curated on napkins and loose leaf and no-longer-sticky sticky notes. Since his insurance policy was for actual cash value, it would only be covering a fraction of what was needed to replace everything, and when Patrick compared the final figure to Ray’s savings account statement, he had to admit that Ray’s prediction was right – he wasn’t going to be able to afford this unless he completely drained his savings.

Damn.

Tentative, Patrick scrolled pointlessly up and down the spreadsheet. “I think you might need to downsize a bit, Ray.”

“I was afraid you were going to say that.” Ray sighed into David’s water glass, which he’d appropriated for himself at some point.

It was hard to see Ray like this, sad and turned in on himself. Patrick had experienced many of Ray’s moods – how could he not have? he’d lived with the man, after all – and the unifying feature through all of their variety was the exuberance. Whether he was singing along with his favourite songs on the radio, hopping around on one foot after stubbing his toe, or providing colourful commentary on the latest newsletter from the Elm County Business Association, Ray was never one to bite his tongue or show much restraint in his emotions. This quiet reservation was a little unsettling, and Patrick, fully cognizant of the fact that he was sliding into Mr. Fix-It Mode and not giving half a damn, was determined to help set things right.

“Well, let’s see what we can do. Can you pull up your net earnings by business for me?” Ray pulled the laptop toward himself and tapped around a few times before turning it back to Patrick. Each of Ray’s businesses had their own column, highlighted a different vibrant colour, and each column was broken down into monthly and yearly gross incoming, outgoing, and net total. Patrick squinted against the neon and focused on the net values. The numbers were… all over the place. Some of the businesses seemed fairly steady, regularly netting a perfectly respectable income, and some of them were barely breaking even. A few rarely made it out of the red.

That last category snagged Patrick’s attention.

“Ray?”

“Yes, Patrick?”

“Do you mind if I ask why you’re still running these three here?” Patrick pointed, indicating the columns with negative values in the last row. “They’re all at least a few years old, so it’s not growing pains. They’re just... not making money. Ray’s Racks almost cancels out the profit you make from Ray’s Sways, even.”

“Oh, well, because I don’t care about that.” Patrick frowned and Ray continued. “I don’t run my businesses to make money, Patrick.”

What.

“What?”

Ray’s smile was muted, small, but Patrick could see the real humour hiding there. “I don’t run my businesses to make money,” he repeated, slightly condescending under his even tone. “I like doing interesting things. I like doing a _lot_ of interesting things – I get bored easily, you see. If something catches my interest or I see something fun, I just do it! And if it can make me money, all the better, but I’m not going to stop doing something that I enjoy just because it’s not keeping me in gold slippers.”

Patrick knew he was staring, knew that his mouth was hanging open a little bit, but he couldn’t help it – his brain stalled out, changing gears too quickly without a clutch. While he would admit that he’d never spent much time contemplating Ray’s business philosophy, this still felt like it was coming out of left field. How could he have known Ray for as long as he had – lived with him, worked for him, invited him over for barbecues and New Year’s Eve parties and Canada Day fireworks – and not known this? Ray’s (frankly absurd) number of little ventures had always just felt like increasingly harebrained attempts to make his fortune, and Patrick had never found any particular reason to be disabused of that idea. However, apparently the truth was far more peculiar and endearing than that. 

A few stray puzzle pieces that Patrick hadn’t known were missing were starting to neatly slot into place, though. Ray’s insistence on investigating each new trend that crossed his social media platforms, for example – that was how he’d picked up on the ballroom dancing craze and started his dance classes. Or the way he flitted between his businesses, never putting more effort into one than he did another, tending them as though they were all equally precious plants. Or how enthusiastically he talked about all of his work, even the more bizarre ventures that seemed to garner little interest with other people. It all made sense in a way that it hadn’t before and Patrick suddenly felt very privileged to know this fact about Ray. It felt like something to be cherished, to be protected from harsh realities.

Ray was still talking, so Patrick refocused his attention. “Obviously, there are the practicalities of life that get in the way – I do actually need to earn a living, unfortunately, so I keep an eye on whether the less financially viable projects are outweighing the ones that let me pay my mortgage. I’ve been fairly blessed, though. As you can see,” and he tapped the laptop screen, “most of them are well in the black, which means I’ve gotten to keep my entire catalogue of interests on the go. Well, until now.” And damnit, there was that sad look again, swamping the spark of enthusiasm that had appeared. Patrick became all the more determined to stop that expression from crossing Ray’s face.

“Okay. Wow, I—I’m sorry, Ray. I didn’t know any of that.”

“That’s all right, Patrick. I know it’s an unusual way of running a business, let alone nine of them. But it makes me happy.”

That much was clear. “Good, I’m glad,” Patrick replied almost absently as his thoughts turned inward. He stared at the laptop screen, the bright pink of the net monthly profit row searing his eyeballs. The idea of letting some things be less profitable simply because they were enjoyable was niggling at the back of his brain now, poking all the memories of tense conversations between himself and David about the store. David, wanting to include some product that he felt hit their aesthetic or was of a quality that met their standards, would argue his piece but Patrick, explaining that the small markup they could reasonably apply wasn’t worth the price of shipping or travel time for pick up, had won each time.

But now it seemed that Ray, in all his eccentric wisdom and pure joy, was on to something and it was a something that looked a lot more like David’s vision than Patrick’s. Maybe, Patrick recognised, he needed to apologise to David. Maybe he needed to take a look at some of the potential products they had discarded because of his insistence on profit margins. He cringed at the idea, even as he started mentally composing his half of that conversation. Hell, he really did hate being wrong, especially about important things.

But that was a problem for the morning – which, Patrick realised as he glanced at the time in the corner of the screen, was closer than he wished it were. 

Rubbing at his eyes, Patrick reoriented his thoughts. “Well, Ray, let’s crunch some numbers and see what we can make happen.”

“Please, if you don’t mind. I’d rather just get this over with – a drawn-out execution is never a pleasant thing.”

Patrick grimaced, but skimmed the spreadsheet again. “Okay, your top three earners are real estate, photography, and travel planning?”

“Mm, yes, though the Service Ontario outlet is fourth and probably the most crucial to the town.”

“Right, that makes sense. People would have to drive to Elmdale to the Service offices there if you stopped.”

“Or even all the way to Thornbridge! You see, I’m really quite important to the local economy, Patrick.”

Which sounded like Ray’s usual sort of brag, and Patrick supposed it was, but it was also pretty true. Looking at the Service Ontario website, Patrick found that the Elmdale branch offered some services Ray didn’t, but they also didn’t offer some services he did. Huh.

“Right, okay, so those four businesses are the ones that we want to put the most effort into reviving, yes?” Ray nodded enthusiastically in agreement. “So what will it cost to get just those four back up and running again?”

Luckily, three of the big four were fairly light on the equipment side of things – the out of pocket cost to get them up off the floor was something far more manageable than the total for everything and Ray insisted that he had no problem paying it. The photography, however, was continuing to cause problems.

“Why the hell are cameras so expensive?” Patrick asked no one in particular. Twenty-five hundred dollars for one camera, Christ. And it only came with a single lens, which was apparently too few for professional photography. “It’s highway robbery.”

“Quality comes at a price, Patrick,” was Ray’s mild reply and Patrick bit his tongue. He was supposed to be helping, not reminding Ray just how screwed he was.

They ran some calculations to estimate how long it would take for Ray to earn enough to comfortably replace his photography equipment if his only income were the real estate, the travel, and the Service Ontario work. Considering the photography itself was Ray’s second biggest earner, the result was both understandable and thoroughly disheartening – it would take _years_. And, of course, that was assuming Ray limited himself to just operating the three known steady moneymakers and not branching out to anything else. Which, now that Patrick knew the secret behind Ray’s seeming excess, just seemed cruel.

“Have you looked for any grants?”

Ray looked up from where he was rifling through a stack of notebooks. “Grants? No. I assumed there wouldn’t be any available for something like this.”

Patrick cracked a smile at the little flare of hope in his chest. “I think you might be surprised. Most grants go totally untapped, you know. Either they aren’t well advertised or are really specific and therefore don’t get a lot of applications, but there’s actually lots of grant money out there in the world just sitting, waiting to be claimed.” 

“Really? That might be the first good news I’ve heard tonight. Assuming, of course, there are actually any out there.”

Biting his lip at the memory of some of his first attempts at flirting with David, Patrick nodded. “Have some faith – we’re gonna get the money.”

They dug in. It took a little while to find anything, proving Patrick’s point about a lack of advertising, but he flexed his googling skills and managed to dig up some available grants that fit Ray’s circumstances. In part, there was one for established businesses that experienced physical damage, one for independent business owners important to the local community, a few for small business owners of colour, and a sizeable one for rural economic stimulus that Patrick figured would be a cakewalk given Ray’s wide influence. Looking at the possible total award amount for everything put together, Patrick couldn’t help but highlight that cell in a Ray-approved neon – it might only be enough to get him the bare bones of his photography list, but Ray confirmed that he could do the majority of his usual sessions with reduced equipment on the short term. After working the grant money into their projections, Patrick felt a smile creep across his face.

“Oh, that is a much more pleasant length of time, yes,” Ray cooed, leaning in over Patrick’s arm to get close to the laptop. “Better than I could have imagined! Six months before I can purchase the rest of the photography equipment? Eight for Ray’s Days? Ten for Ray’s Soirées?”

“Theoretically, yes. But these are just estimates, remember, and they assume we get all the grants.”

“Yes, yes.” Ray nodded, flapping a hand dismissively. “But far nicer estimates than before, even if it’s still longer than I wish it were.”

“I know it’s going to be tough to reduce your diversity for that long,” Patrick said, waving a finger in a circle around the rest of the columns on the spreadsheet. It was a big circle. “I wish you didn’t have to at all – your variety is something you’re known for, and you clearly really enjoy having nine different projects on the go at once.” Ray preened slightly, and Patrick patted his arm. “But trying to revive them all immediately simply isn’t feasible. Wait until you’re more on your feet again, let the big four pull their weight for a bit, and _then_ get your scheduling service and your party planning and your salsa dancing lessons and your closet organising up and going.”

“And the print framing.”

“Yes, and the print framing, too. I’m sure Jake wouldn’t mind hitting pause on your partnership for a while while you get all of this sorted out. Think you can hold off on starting something else new until then?” Patrick nudged, testing for a reaction.

Ray shot Patrick a flat look, his eyes twinkling for the first time that night. “I think I’ll manage, yes. If anything, it will give me time to think up new projects! I’ve been thinking about getting into pet grooming, actually, but it seems to have a steep learning curve.”

Patrick just shook his head in amusement, a pleased warmth spreading through his belly as he opened a new word document.

By the time they had worked out a detailed plan for Ray to follow, full of deadlines and start dates and expected income, and had outlined a sketch of what they’d be putting into the various grant applications, the sky was a deep purple instead of black. A glance at the clock on the mantel confirmed that it was almost dawn, and Patrick suddenly felt the weight of the missing hours of sleep slump heavy onto his shoulders.

It was too late to try and go back to bed, though. He knew he’d just lie awake until his alarm went off, thinking and overthinking the plan they’d developed for Ray. Plus there was the risk of waking David up, which would be disastrous at this hour.

Early breakfast it was, then.

“Tea, Ray?” Patrick slapped his thighs as he stood, wincing as his back cracked with startling volume. Ray turned to him, still clutching his handwritten schedule full of arrows and circles, looking brighter and happier than he’d been in days despite the dark circles under his eyes. His smile lit up the whole room and Patrick couldn’t help but smile right back.

“Oh, no, thank you, Patrick. Your tea is always far too weak for my liking – it’s just hot water that looked at a tea leaf! You really should work on improving your tea making skills some time. I could show you!”

Patrick pursed his lips against the smile that threatened to reveal how pleased he was to hear Ray back at his regular patronising chirping. “That sounds really nice, Ray, but for now, how about I just leave the bag in the mug for you?”

“Well,” Ray said, beaming, “in that case, I accept. Thank you very much, Patrick.”

“You’re very welcome, Ray.”

**Author's Note:**

> Service Ontario does not franchise out their services (including business licensing), and certainly wouldn’t do so in a for-profit manner, but Mr. Dan Levy didn’t seem to care about this sort of thing so... I don’t either.


End file.
